The forest closed in on her as she trotted down the path. She glanced back. Part of her still expected Remy to be there, eyes intense, jaws agape as he pursued her.
She shook her fur, and the thoughts, away. Remy was dead. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. The forest was just a forest, filled with wonderful scents and sounds, the moonlight filtering down through the leaves and dappling the darkness.
A shadow passed between her and the moon. She glanced upward, but whatever it was had passed. An owl, perhaps. Dani had nothing to fear from the air. Not in this dream.
She moved into a lope, her long legs carrying her swiftly over ground that rose beneath her paws. The trees thinned overhead as rock rose from the dirt. Soon she scrambled up a path between boulders, the moon lighting her way.
When she reached the apex, she paused. Her heart twisted within her, burdened with the torments of her past.
Dani wanted to put it behind her, but it was more complicated than she wanted it to be. Despite her determination, her inner Dire mourned the loss of her alpha and pack.
That tortured creature begged her to let it loose, just this once. Dani was alone in this dream. What would be the harm? Perhaps it would help.
She raised her muzzle to the moon, and howled.
It started out low, almost too soft to hear. But then something within her broke, and the sound soared into the night, filled with all her pain. It promised to cleanse her spirit and soul, if she could just let it all go . . .
Movement in the clouds far above startled her. A gleam of moonlight on golden scales.
He banked toward her. Beautiful, so beautiful, the gold glimmering against the backdrop of clouds, glowing where the stray moonlit beams broke through.
She should run. But she didn’t. An energy swept over her like a sonar beam. And it was familiar.
Dani knew this Dragon.
He landed lightly on the rocks near her, and his huge silver eyes danced with color.
“Come with me, Dani,” Ash said.
She stared at him. “But I can’t fly.”
“Then why do you have wings?”
Dani turned her head. Her neck seemed strangely long—she could rotate her head clear around. Two jet-black wings arched over her back. The scales on them glittered deep-blue in the moonlight.
“But—I don’t know how to fly,” she repeated.
“So sure are you? Anything is possible in dreams.” And he launched himself back into the air. “Come with me,” he called back to her.
The Dragon was certifiable. But to her shock, Dani swallowed her fear, crouched, and leaped into the sky. She beat her wings, and her dream Dragon followed the golden one, as easily as if she’d been doing this all her life.
He led her into the clouds above, and she chased him through them, ducking and diving, feeling nothing but the joy of soaring through the air...
* * *
And he dreamed:
Tyrez soared through the night sky, playing tag with the clouds.
He loved to do that—had since he was a child. To dip his wings and tail through the vapor until wisps trailed from the tips and tiny water droplets glittered like jewels on his scales.
Then he heard the howl.
It started low, and then rose, the pitch of it deep with pain.
He banked, and dropped through the clouds. They were dense, obscuring his vision.
And then, suddenly, a flash of gold.
